So, in my heaps of free time when I wasn’t working on Madonna & Me, I was working on another book! A nonfiction pop-culture book about the apocalypse! Yes, I’m serious. It’s called The End: 50 Apocalyptic Visions From Pop Culture That You Should Know About…Before It’s Too Late. It’s out this July from awesome San Francisco publisher Zest Books. You can pre-order it here! And I’ll give you more details later, but of course.

I’ve wanted to write for a Jane Pratt venture for a zillion years now. Like many women my age, I grew up with (read: was obsessed with) Sassy magazine as a pre-teen. It was so smart and so honest and so fun and so refreshingly non-condescending. I’m glad I finally got to write something — about a sad subject: a guy I went out with who was later murdered — for Jane P.’s newish website XOJane. Check it out.

Initially I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write about September 11th — some part of me feels like I’m not “allowed” to feel anything about the anniversary, because I didn’t personally know anyone who died that day. I know people who narrowly avoided being in the towers that day (like my father, and a neighbor). Despite not knowing any of the victims, I lived in Brooklyn and worked in Manhattan then, so the whole thing hit extremely close to home. I had nightmares about 9/11 for months. Anyway, I felt strongly enough about the anniversary that I felt compelled to write, well, something.